by Celeste Raye
He kissed her hand, and there was a lingering sense of need on his face. How long had he waited for her to be in his arms once more? It seemed unreal, and Jake didn't want to leave again. Jake was going to most likely have to do something he didn't want to do.
He gave Alexis another kiss before they left, and he looked back only once to see her watching him go. He looked at Donovan and asked him what he thought was going on.
“Do you really have to ask, brother? We both know that Dad has taken over again. He probably has Charlie and Fred in a cell somewhere. A few other people might have made it in there too, but those that are loyal to him have helped him get back in. That isn't too hard to figure out.”
Jake didn't want to say that he was thinking along the same lines, but he was. They knew Dean too well to think he would just let it go. Their dad never let anything go, and he certainly wasn't going to lose the title of alpha and walk away without saying a word.
“Well, it really didn't take him much time.”
“We've been gone long enough. He could have been here the whole time. We really don't know what we’re walking into, so we need to be careful. We could be walking into a trap.”
Jake agreed, even if he didn't want to. They had been gone a while, but he couldn't help it. Jake would not stop until he had found Alexis, and that had been a lot more complicated than he first thought. She had been hard to keep in line, so she had been sold six times from what he could gather. At some point, he had thought that something must have happened to her, but she was just the same Alexis that he remembered. The difference was now they had a child together.
They left their bikes with Alexis. They were too loud, and it was a lot easier to shift and go in close enough to pick up what was going on with their extra senses. Jake’s nose told him that his father was, in fact, in the compound. He looked back at his shifted brother and their eyes met. They both knew the same thing. The Rebel Bears had been taken over again, and this time, they were going to have to fight to get it back.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Alexis was on edge, waiting for the guys to get back. It was close to an hour, before she heard anything or saw them coming out into the clearing. She was relieved but noticed the other two brothers were with them. Jake had fought someone, his face showing the lasting results.
She rushed to him, and he told her that they had to leave.
“I don’t know how, but we need back-up, Alexis. There are more that were on his side than I thought.”
Alexis bit her lip and suggested something. “Why don’t we go see my dad, see if they will help?”
Jake was disbelieving, but she said her piece. What else were they going to do? He agreed, if a little begrudgingly, but Alexis was sure that it would work out. It had to. Her father would be happy to see her, and she would be happy to see them all. She didn’t know how she was going to convince them to help her just yet, but she was going to figure it out. She had to.
Getting them to listen to her was easier than she would have imagined. Her father was ready for a truce anyway. The Rebel Bears were the biggest gang in town, and if he wanted to survive there, he had to get them on board. Helping them take back over helped in many ways.
Alexis was happy to see what was left of her family. She didn’t know what all had happened, but the gang was smaller than she remembered. Her father looked worn and weary. Jake and his brothers were polite, and she was happy to see everyone getting along.
It was weird to have Jake there again, but lying next to him at night, wrapped in his arms, was one of the best feelings she’d ever felt. Alexis was nervous when they all left the next day to get the Rebel Bears back in the right hands. She wanted it all to go well and sat for hours holding Gisele and praying for the four brothers to come back safe, as well as her own family.
When she finally saw movement in the woods outside of her father’s compound, it was a nerve-wracking moment until Jake cleared the brush and shifted back to his old self. She sighed in relief and launched into his arms.
“Where’s Gisele?”
“Sleeping. How did it go?”
He frowned for a moment. “I did what had to be done; we all did. Without your family, I don’t think we would have gotten the upper hand. We lost many tonight, but our clan will be stronger for it. I want you to come with me.”
“Right now?”
Alexis was still waiting for others to come through the brush, but they weren’t.
“Where is everyone?”
“Waiting for me to get you and the baby. It’s time for us to get married, Alexis. The moon is full tonight; did you know that?”
She said she did not. Alexis hadn’t even thought of that. She was still trying to get used to having Jake back and not being an indentured servant. Now to be his wife.
He must have taken her expression for her not wanting to marry him.
“I didn’t even ask you if that’s what you wanted. I guess I should ask now. Will you marry me, Alexis, and make our family whole. Become my queen?”
She giggled and told him that she liked the sound of that.
Jake looked immediately relieved. “Damn it, woman, you really had me going there for a minute. You really did.”
She smiled at his answer and fell into his arms, kissing his lips and wanting more than anything to be the man’s wife. The only time she felt whole was when she was in his arms. Alexis wanted an entire life worth of that. Nothing else would do.
Bear’s Baby
Rebel Bears MC
Book II
Chapter One
Donovan listened in at the meeting. He sat at the head of the table like his brothers but didn’t add in any of his ideas like he had all the other times. It seemed like now, Donovan was just there for show. That’s all it was. His brother didn’t care what he thought, and though it bothered him, there was nothing that he could do about it. Donovan couldn’t change what had happened.
He’d mostly been on the wrong side of the battle that had raged between his brother Jake and his father; being close with Dean, it seemed natural to choose his father. It hadn’t felt right to go against him and back his successor. How would that had made a good impression?
In Donovan’s defense, he had turned to his brothers’ side, all of them, when he realized what his father had done. He had sold drugs, weapons, booze, anything that would make him a quick buck. That was all fine with Donovan, but when he realized that his father was also selling people, he had to draw the line. That was too far out of the realm of what Donovan was comfortable with for their motorcycle gang. He was in shock when he found out.
They’d banished Dean—well, Jake had, and Donovan had been right by his side. It had been hard to see the fall of the man that he’d always looked up to.
Now, though, it was hard on him. He listened to Jake give words of encouragement to his other brothers, to everyone. He led differently than Dean had. It was a better way, listening to all involved and thinking on problems instead of starting more by jumping in blind. He could see the strategy and how it was so much better than before, but there was a problem.
It was a silent one: one that no one talked about. While Donovan had changed sides in the end, he had been at Dean’s side for many years. Which meant that it was hard for Jake and the rest of his brothers to trust him. That made sense. He understood it all, but it was hard to deal with. It made him feel like an outsider in his own clan. The Rebel Bears had always been his place.
When the meeting was finished, Jake called him over and asked him what was going on.
“What do you mean?”
“You didn’t say a word the whole time. I don’t think you’ve ever been that quiet before. You didn’t speak when Elder Beasley started talking about the heroin trade he wants to pick back up. I thought you were against it?”
“I am, but you know that. You’re the leader, Jake. Everyone is going to listen to you. I doubt anyone cares much about what I’ve got to say.”
It came
out more bitter than he would have liked. Donovan wanted to be a part of his family’s gang, but he was just as out of it as Dean was.
“It’s just going to take some time. That’s all. You and Dad were so close, I think they are still waiting for him to come back from the dead and attack us again.”
Donovan looked away. He didn’t want to talk about the job that was put on his head. He knew that it was a test for him to show Jake that he really wasn’t on Dean’s side, but it had been too much for him to bear. He certainly didn’t want to have a casual conversation about it now.
“I thought I’d proven my loyalty.”
Jake grabbed his shoulder and made him look him in his eyes. “You have, brother. I know that I can trust you, but I also know that the rest of them need some time. I have a job for you, something I think will help those things go a little bit faster, get things back to normal here.”
Donovan didn’t know if he liked the sound of that. Jake was always trying to float ideas that he wasn’t sure about. What would he want him to do now, to prove his loyalty? He’d already asked him to kill their father. What more could he want?
He asked him what he was talking about, a clear sign of apprehension in his voice.
“Well, I thought that maybe you could go on a little trip. After how well it went working with the Gambes, I’m thinking that we should branch out even further. There are at least twelve shifter biker gangs in a five-hundred-mile radius and we should see if any of them could be a good fit for us.”
Donovan sighed softly. His brother wasn’t going to make him take someone else out. Donovan didn’t know if he would be able to, so that was a good thing.
“Okay. When do you want me to start, and do you have a particular one in mind?”
“The Altrues in Shreveport and the Bennigans in Slidell would be a good place to start.”
“Swamp clans?”
Jake shrugged and looked a bit perturbed.
“I don’t think you should call them that when you meet them. I think that was dad’s term for anyone down in Louisiana. I want to change that. You’re going to be the ambassador for me, Donovan, so be diplomatic.”
He agreed with the sentiment. Talking never did seem to help him out.
A few bits of information were given about where they all lived, how the gang was run, and who was at the top. Donovan took dutiful notes, but he didn’t even take them with him when he left. He had a good idea of how it worked. His father wasn’t that good at communication, so it had always been Donovan that had to smooth things over. That would come in handy; likely several of the clans would not have anything good to say about Dean. Very few people that had dealings with him felt good about it when it was over.
Donovan told his other brothers that he would be back, but not even Donovan knew how long it was going to be. He was onto a new adventure, one that would prove to everyone that he was a good man. He wasn’t in his father’s shadow anymore, though. He had to prove that he could cast his own.
Chapter Two
“Chris, I think we have a problem.”
Chris looked at his second-in-command and asked him what the problem was. Jerry got worked up too much; his eyes would bulge out of their sockets, and it was hard to take him seriously. At the moment, he wanted to laugh, but first, he had to find out the cause for all of the concern on his face.
“What is going on, Jerry? You look like you’re about to jump out of your skin, and you know it’s too early for that.”
“For good reason.”
“I don’t know if I would call it a good reason. First, you have to tell me what this is all about. Then I will decide if we should be concerned or not.”
Jerry agreed, taking a deep breath before he launched into what had him so nervous. It wasn’t what Chris had thought. He hoped that it would be something silly, but it wasn’t. He didn’t know if his eyes were bugging out like Jerry’s were, but he knew that they should have been.
“Have you sounded the alarm?”
“Well, I only see the one. It looks like the leader, but we’ve heard rumors that Dean is gone. If it is not Dean, then it must be one of his sons.”
“And you have no idea what he is doing here?”
Jerry shrugged and then said something about how he wasn’t going to just walk up to him. “You know that they are probably waiting just out of reach, and as soon as we come out, they are going to attack us.”
It was a possibility, but Chris had hoped that since Dean wasn’t running the Rebel Bears anymore, they weren’t as dangerous as they had once been.
“Maybe we need to walk up to him, find out what’s going on. He hasn’t attacked. He knows that we’re here, so it’s not like we can hide in the mines forever. This isn’t the time to hide, Jerry.”
Jerry didn’t look so sure, and that worried Chris a little bit.
“The mines have kept us safe from them before. It is not hiding but preserving life.”
Chris clicked his tongue, and it was obvious that Jerry’s lack of courage was bothering him. The mines were from long ago, and it was a rather unusual place to live, but it had been easier to defend themselves when they were attacked. Was it enough now? Probably not.
“I will go out and meet him. You can stay behind, take care of the women and children if that is what you choose to do.”
Chris could see the look of agony on Jerry’s face. Half their clan had been killed by Dean fifteen years ago. The rest had gone underground, and that had made it ripe for cowardice to become the norm. He wanted to change that.
After a few minutes of preparation, Chris was heading outside of the mine to meet the man, but Jerry pulled him back.
“I will go with you, Chris, to make sure that someone has your back.”
But Chris didn’t want him to go. He was too jumpy. If he was wrong, though, and Jerry was right, it wouldn’t matter soon anyway. Chris would be dead if they were just trying to pull him out.
“You stay here, Jerry. I have this. Thank you for saying you’d go, even though you’re full of fear.”
The older man got upset, but Chris waved him off.
He walked towards the elevator and made his way up to the top. There wasn’t enough information to be seen through the cameras. Chris was just going to have to take the chance, his stomach churning at the very idea of it.
Chris was about to go meet the man; whose clan had killed most of his family. They were in fact the enemy.
The elevator creaked as it rose hundreds of feet to the surface. Everything was getting old and starting to fall apart. How many times had Chris felt the same way about his own body? He smiled at the thought, not sure what to think of all that was coming next.
When he got up top, he could see the guy through the mesh screen that separated him from the outside. The elevator door opened, and he pushed the mesh aside. It was the moment of truth, and Chris didn’t know what to think. He certainly looked just like Dean: the beast that had changed their way of life.
He stepped out slowly, trying to gauge the situation. Dean’s son wasn’t showing any emotions. He just stared at him, saying nothing and making Chris feel like he was going to come out of his skin.
“What can I do for you?”
Chris wasn’t rude, but he wasn’t as warm and welcoming. No one in his clan would be able to. The Altrues would never be able to forget what was done to them. They’d lived underground for a decade and a half. The Rebel Bears had taken away the sun and the moon. Many that had left because of it, choosing to be without their family rather than to be away from nature.
“My name is Donovan. I have been sent here, to talk to whoever is in charge of the Altrues clan. We are not sure of your political structure or who is currently in charge.”
“I would guess not. We’ve lived underground like moles for the last fifteen years.”
The man was surprised, as was Chris. He had told himself that he had to have a level head, but it was hard, considering all that had happened because of the R
ebel Bears. He looked behind him, trying to see if there was anyone else ready to pounce. If there was, he was already in their sights, and there wasn’t going to be much of anything that he could do to stop that.
“I know. My father did a lot of regrettable things to many of the clans around us. That is why the new leader, the eldest of his son’s, Jake, would like to extend his hand in greeting. I am here to talk with you and to let you know that we will not be running our clan that way anymore. We aren’t pursuing anyone. We have chosen to work with our competition instead of getting rid of them.”
Donovan paused, trying to collect his thoughts by the look of it, and Chris waited anxiously for the rest. Was it too good to be true?
“I came here first, because, well, because of this.”
He gestured to the mine entrance and the elevator that was his only way in and out of the clan’s home. After fifteen years, it felt more like a prison now.
“We don’t want you or any other clan to live in fear of us. Your wolves; you need the moon. Find a new place and I assure you that we will help to give you income streams, if you’re willing, or leave you alone if that’s what you desire. The reign of my father is over. He will not be coming back, and we will not go on that way in his absence.”
Chris was stunned. He was hopeful but still unsure. It didn’t seem possible or real. How could it be real?
“You want us to move out of the mines?”
Donovan shrugged. “The Rebel Bears hurt a lot of shifter clans in the area. You’re not the only one that I will go to, demonstrating our willingness to work together with you. There is nothing to fear, and I hope in time, you will be able to see that what I say is true.”
“It’s a lot to take in.”
“It is, and that’s why I will leave you to it. I have many to see.”
